The present invention relates to a convertible article of furniture for home or for office use. More particularly, the invention is directed to a storage cabinet readily and conveniently transformable to a desk.
Known in the art are furniture items such as chests or cabinets which may be transformed into desks or work stations. Included among these are structures in which a secondary top which overlies a base, cabinet, or chest may be pivoted horizontally from its reference position, to extend normally of or at some other angle from a base or primary structure. In some prior art arrangements a board, plank, or leaf sandwiched between the top of a table and the table body is pulled outwardly along guide rails and then pivoted to extend transversely of the supporting base. In other arrangements an auxiliary shelf or work surface pivotally attached to a desk and supported on independent legs is stored or stowed in a kneehole zone of a desk.
In yet other arrangements, a table top is fastened at one end to the body of a chest. The top has a pair of support legs or a or a supporting wall depending from its opposite end and is pivotal to project from the chest to provide a work surface. In some articles the pivotal or extending top assumes a storage portion beneath the desk top. In others 1 it closely overlies the desk top. Work stations which consist of laterally pivotal, interesting body sections which open to provide access to shelves and cabinet chambers for housing and storing computer components such as terminals, display screens and related information recording and processing apparatus including key boards, printers and other electronic equipment are also known.
However, the convenience and utility of known desk assemblies of the class having a fixed work surface as well as an auxiliary, second work top in which the latter may be manipulated between a stand-by or a storage mode and a functional disposition are somewhat limited. In most cases there is absent a capability of utilizing, simultaneously both the top of the desk or cabinet as well as the top surface of the secondary work-top component, when the secondary work top or panel is in a mode to overlie the desk or base. The work surface of the desk is rendered totally unavailable for useful purposes. Reversal of the physical arrangement ordinarily creates a similar problem.
Many of the known "convertible" desk structures are undesirably complex in operation as well as in their physical structures, whether a secondary top is slidable or is pivoted. In still others, either the desk top or the auxiliary top, or both, must be cleared off before the assembly can be converted to its consolidated, or compacted, or compressed modal configuration.
For the most part the convertible assemblies of the prior art are lacking in either aesthetic or artistic appeal. They are intended for use solely or primarily in business or commercial environments, rather than in homes or in home office areas or dens.
For the most part, known assemblies which utilize secondary or auxiliary work tops do not allow one's use of the table top or desk top itself as a permanent locus for the placement and for the use, as well as for out-of-sight storage of "desk-top" devices machines, and other articles. Inconveniently, such items must be removed and then stored elsewhere when an auxiliary or second work top is relegated to an "at ready" or standby modal disposition. In this disposition, the second work top is more or less in a real congruence or in superimposed registry with a top work surface of a desk or table, the desk itself being the principal component of the assembly. Vertical spacing between the desk top and the second work panel is ordinarily quite restricted. Either the desk top or the top of the auxiliary work surface must be cleared, depending on which constitutes the undermost unit. Usually, this is the desk top.
While convertible assemblies involving desks and their physical conversion to space-enhancing and more versatile work stations are known, each structure has one or more objectionable features. Each suffers from one or more inadequacies. It is, accordingly, a principal aim of the present invention to provide an articulate desk assembly constituting a base or cabinet-like structure which may simply and expeditiously be converted to a desk having a significantly increased top span or useful work surface, a preserved storage space, and which cures many of the objectionable features and shortcomings of prior art structures.